Sweet Dreams
by SeeASea
Summary: The courtship of Keira, from her perspective. Awoken after a seemingly endless age of sleep, Keira finds her feelings awakening as well.
1. Chapter 1: Black

**Author's Note: This is an oldie but I goodie, I think! I published this once on Ushi No Tane, quite some time ago. I hope you like it!**

**Chapter 1: Black**

For so long I was just… asleep. Dreaming, I suppose, but about what slips my mind. That one day, however... Or perhaps it was really an afternoon? Night? My sense of time had deserted me as well in that dark and damp chamber, deep under the surface of the world I once knew. This one day is the first of my real memories.

That day, the large rock blocking my only exit started to rumble, and suddenly it was reduced to a powder. I clutched the quilt that had covered me for what seemed like ages and feared what it could possibly be. I wanted to feign sleep, but my eyes cracked open to see what was there. In the settling dust a human figure was outlined. Could it be the one who put me in here? Could it be someone who would just leave me here? Or… could it be the one who would get me out?

Not knowing whether to be frightened or overjoyed, I cowered-or perhaps shook with excitement? Something in between the two extremes, I hid under the covers. I chanced a peek, and he was there. Him. He was dirty: his hands were coated with grime from the mines, his face was streaked with sweat which he wiped off with a sleeve, and his overalls and boots fared even worse. There was something like a bite mark on his lower right arm which was bleeding lightly. A sword hung from his right hand, and though that seemed to mark him as a prince, a rescuer, a hero, he looked exactly the opposite of any storybook description. He enchanted me, but it only seemed to make a slight ripple in my deadened emotions and sleepiness.

He seemed to realize suddenly that I was there and a look of confusion spread across his face. I squeezed my eyes shut and wondered what he would do now. I heard labored footsteps and the sound of the tip of the sword being dragged along the mine's floor. The steps came right up beside the head of the bed, and I heard a rough little muttered, "What's this?" He was looking at my sign, which asked for a curry dish. How long had it been since I had had curry? What did it taste like? I felt my stomach ache from long emptiness.

The man coughed quietly, and then I felt the hesitant touch of his hand on my shoulder, "Miss?"

I opened my eyes and gazed up at him. He was not classically handsome, but I liked his features. His eyebrows were expressive, at the present moment puzzled, and his eyes were deep brown wells. I wished I could say something, but… I searched for my paper and suddenly felt sleepy. Grabbing it, I scrawled down, "What do you want?"

He looked surprised, "I had no idea someone lived in the mine! And this far down too… What's your name?"

He hadn't answered my question. I furrowed my eyebrows and wrote, "Princess Keira. And you are?" I looked up at him and saw him rub one arm with his other hand.

"A princess! Huh, I never did learn how to act around royalty. The name's Jack, I'm a rancher here in Forget-Me-NotValley," he replied, then suddenly cringed. His hand had landed over the wound and he pulled his fingers away, shiny and red.

I frowned, and then looked around my bed. I pulled up one of the edges of my sheet and tore off a strip of fabric. Turning back to him I tried to communicate for him to come closer. He shuffled up to the bedside and I pulled his arm in front of me, quickly wrapping it. He drew in breath when I made it too tight, and before he could say anything I deftly loosened it. When I finished tying it I looked to Jack's face.

"Wow, thanks! Much better…" he murmured, going over my handiwork. He glanced from it to me and then his face broke out in a good-natured smile, "Well, I'm no prodigy of a miner, but I hope I'll see you again soon. A girl deep in the mine! Who would have guessed? And a princess at that!" He turned and just before leaving the chamber he waved back at me. I lifted my small hand and waved back, and before I knew it I heard the digging of a hoe and steps on stairs. A rock from above my chamber door suddenly slipped down with thunderous reverberations, and I was trapped once more, staring at where I had last seen Jack.


	2. Chapter 2: Purple

**Chapter 2: Purple**

I slept deeply after he came. Something about the interview made me unbelievably drowsy, and my eyelids soon grew too heavy to keep up. I'm not sure how long I slept, I think I might have dreamed about curry and eating, but I awoke again and found myself anticipating something. I sensed that it was not all still and quiet in the mine.

Sure enough, the rock came crumbling down with a flare of light. A whiff of something tauntingly familiar made my mouth water. What was it? I sat up in bed, wondering if it would be Jack again. The rancher trudged in, coughing from the grit hanging in the air. He stopped at the foot of the bed with a tired smile, "I'm sorry it took so long for me to come back."

I cocked an eyebrow and found my tablet, quickly writing, "How long has it been?"

He looked down ashamed after reading and then answered, "About two weeks. But I had to get a kitchen put in my house and there was a typhoon, and…"

When he looked up I shook my head and showed him my written response to end his guilt, "I don't really acknowledge time. I have been asleep."

Jack's eyebrows shot up, "Sleeping? All this time?" I nodded, and he shifted, easing his rucksack off his shoulders, which I noticed were strong and square, "Well, I got you something. Your sign asked for some curry, so I made you a dish of Finest Curry." He handed me a hot dish, and my eyes widened as I suddenly recalled what curry tasted like. I eagerly ate it, and I heard Jack laugh. Blushing, I looked up to see what he thought was so funny.

"You ate that up! I'm sorry I didn't bring more!" he grinned. Then he turned his gaze on his gloves, which he fiddled with, "So you're really hungry down here, aren't you?"

I nodded, but then wrote on my tablet, "I'm sleepy."

"Well then, I guess I can only say sweet dreams. I'll see you again sometime soon, okay?" he walked from my chamber and another rock fell, blocking my exit and Jack's entrance. How did he manage to get in?

I heard a tinkling sound by my ear and looked over at the message board by my bed. I saw the writing change and I jumped. It asked for the reader to bring me Relaxtea. I did have a faint memory of loving tea… I felt incredibly tired and my head crashed down on the pillow, my mind reverting to my constant sleep.


	3. Chapter 3: Blue

**Chapter 3: Blue**

He came again. And again. And soon, I began to regret his leaving, and look forward to his returning (when I managed to be awake in between). Once or twice I would feel his hand on my shoulder, and that would bring me from my dreams to reality, which was as much like a dream as anything. A princess trapped in the mines and her… happiness? …relying on a boy to arrive to see her? He would give me beautiful seasonal sun stones, and I would put them under my pillow and hold them in my sleep. He would always wish me sweet dreams. Then one day, he came to me with a carefully preserved teacup from his trip down the mines, and I sipped the Relaxtea as he talked to me.

"Your sign told me to get that for you. Do you write on it?" Jack asked, leaning his elbows on the footboard. I shook my head. He was silent for a bit, and I feared he would leave, but then he said, "How long have you been down here? How'd you get here?"

I mutely sighed and wrote down my answer, "I can only recall my name."

"Oh…" Jack frowned and took off his hat. After running a hand through his hair he returned it and said, "That's a shame. But you do remember me coming to see you, right?"

"Yes," I wrote, flashing him the sign before turning it around again. I wrote more, "I hold these memories close. They are the only ones I have."

His cheeks turned a little pink and he laughed nervously, and then walked over to the sign next to my bed. It hadn't changed yet, so after looking at it briefly he turned to me, "Do you remember what it's like to live above ground?"

"Perhaps," I wrote hesitantly, "Manners, ideas, general things. But nothing to do with me."

He nodded thoughtfully, "Would you like to hear about what goes on up there with me?" I looked down at my sheets and wondered what kind of life the Jack I only saw between my seemingly endless sleep did. I gazed up at him and nodded.

"Well, right now it's fall. If you know what fall is," I nodded and he continued, "The trees are so beautiful around my farm. I've got lots of things planted right now, plenty of sweet potatoes and carrots. I'm saving up money for a barn at the moment. That'll make me the only animal rancher in the valley, since Vesta only grows crops…" I would occasionally ask who someone was or what a place looked like, and he kindly and patiently told me before continuing.

Every time that he came back after that he would tell me about the day or week he had had, and I congratulated him when he got his barn, sympathized when the typhoon wiped out the old peach tree his father had planted, and laughed in my silent way at his jokes. And every time that he would leave I would fall asleep and dream of the world he described.


	4. Chapter 4: Green

**Chapter 4: Green**

The sign next to me magically changed in its way to say that I needed an emerald. I did rather remember liking a green stone, but why the sign would have someone get it for me was beyond my comprehension.

After one particularly long sleep, I heard a shoe scuff on the dirt floor of my chamber. My eyes fluttered open, and I found the farmer walking into my room. I felt myself smile, and I realized how good it felt, and how long it had been, since I was happy in the way I was when I saw him. He noticed my smile and grinned, then looked like he remembered something. He rummaged through his large rucksack and found a glistening emerald, which he passed to me. He pressed it into my hand and it made my heart flutter to have our hands touching.

"How are you, Keira?" Jack said, sitting on the edge of my bed down by my feet. I was suddenly struck by the thought that I could not remember when my feet had ever touched the ground. I shrugged, and then furrowed my eyebrows.

"Sleepy as always." I paused in writing and then continued, "How do you get in and out of this room Jack?" I wrote, my hand shaking a bit.

"Hmm? Well, there's always a rock in front of your room, so I have to fight off all the dark monsters before it crumbles," he replied, like it was nothing.

I was shocked. He had to fight monsters to see me?! He saw my expression and grinned sheepishly. I clutched my pencil again and composed my next answer, "There are monsters in this mine? What else is there?"

"Well, every level there are monsters. I don't go down all 255 levels to see you one at a time though, I skip through them with the holes in the floor. Sometimes I can go fifty, sixty levels at once. There's ores in the mine and the seasonal suns I give you. There are mines other than this one, too."

I hesitated in writing my next message, but then I boldly continued, "Could I try leaving?"

Jack's eyebrows shot up, "I'd never thought of that before. Seems pretty dumb of me really… We can give it a try. Do you need help getting up?"

I nodded to his question and I pulled away my sheets, finding the same yellow robe that I always remember wearing. I swung my legs to the side and Jack grabbed onto my hands and pulled me up towards him. Unsteady, I teetered and then swayed forward onto Jack's chest. I blushed deeply, unseen by him. He laughed, "Like a calf when it first walks! Here, let me help." He circled my shoulders with one of his arms and we took a few baby steps towards the door.

Was I really doing this? Was I really going to be free? I was afraid and uncertain and joyous all at the same time, but whatever I felt I was reassured by my one friend's arm around me, leading the way. I took a few steps successfully and Jack grinned, letting me walk on my own. We were almost to the door. He walked through first to check for monsters, and then he gave me the thumbs up. I was about to take my steps to freedom, when I heard a rumble from above us and ended up staggering back. Crash!

Jack was on the other side of the blasted rocks that somehow knew where I was, what I wanted to do! I was cursed, I realized; some magic was writing on my sign and keeping me sealed in this horrid cave… Would I ever get out? Tears welled in my eyes and I threw myself onto my bed. I curled up in a ball, huddled in the sheets, and waited for sleep to take me away, as it always did.


	5. Chapter 5: Yellow

**Chapter 5: Yellow**

The sign said to bring golden lumber, and though I knew it was something I treasured, I didn't even understand what it was. One thing I did understand was that it sounded impossible to obtain. I sighed without a sound and pulled my knees to me. I hadn't fallen asleep yet since that rock had fallen, but my eyelids were getting heavy again.

Rumble. Crack! I looked up quickly and saw the rock disappear. He had come back! Jack made his way to my bedside slowly, then after a moment of watching his feet and the mine floor he glanced over and smiled sadly at me, "I wish you could come up with me…" He almost whispered it. I nodded lightly and pulled my sheets closer to me. He sat down on the bed next to me and said in a determined voice, "But I'll come and visit you. Never think that just because you can't go up I can't come down."

I turned to him and he was staring at me seriously. This genuine statement made my heart swell with gratitude, and something else I couldn't quite place, and I smiled, hoping to assure him of my trust. Then he said, "It's been two days since I last came and I felt guilty about leaving you alone after that. Is there anything you want to talk about to me? I must bore you with stories about my mundane life."

I answered him, "Your life, mundane?" I rolled my eyes with a small smile, "You're not very busy are you? You're often here."

"Not as often as I'd like to," he admitted, rubbing his hands together and then on his overall pants, leaving stains from the dirt and dust, "But lately not so busy. It's winter."

I pondered what I might say to him then wrote, "I dream. I dream about Forget-Me-NotValley and your ranch and the town."

"Really? I hope I've given you a fair picture of what it's really like." Jack chuckled. He looked at the sign briefly, and had half-turned his head before it whipped back, "Golden lumber?!"

I bit my lip, afraid of my fears that it was too impossible to get. I wasn't sure why it mattered, but I had a feeling it was essential to something. He looked thoughtfully at the sign and then turned slowly to me with a grin, "Sorry, what were you saying?"

I wrote, "In one of my dreams I was at the beach and everyone knew me, but you weren't there. I went into the mine and you were here instead of me." It had chilled me. Was that how it felt to Jack, knowing I was down here in the mine?

"Well, did you come and visit me all the time?" he asked, smiling.

"I woke up when I saw you there," I wrote, "I am glad it is me here instead of you."

Jack's smile disappeared and he shook his head, "Don't say that…" then he rubbed his arm with the other hand, a common gesture for him, and said, "Tell me more about your dreams."

That was how it went for some time, he would come and I would tell him of my dreams of the valley and of places I had never been. Jack said he must have bored me to tears with his stories and I denied it, writing, "You're an interesting person." He didn't believe me, but more and more he was invading my dreams, my thoughts, and my heart.

And then one day, he came down with the silliest grin I had ever seen. I burst out laughing, no sound coming out. He took his hands from behind his back and showed me a piece of golden lumber, and simultaneously my heart thudded in my chest. I put a hand up to it to make sure there was still a beat, and it was racing. "Well, I saved up for some time and bought you this! 100,000 gold!"

He had spent that much money? Just for me?! And there was something else about the moment I couldn't shake. I racked my brain and for once it relinquished the information. I wrote hurriedly, sloppily, "It's my birthday today. I love golden lumber. Thank you!"

"Anything for you, Keira," he smiled slightly and handed me the golden lumber, which I marveled at in the light which somehow found its way into my chamber. Then he gave me a hug, which is one of the most wonderful things in the world to receive. To be so close to him was better than the golden lumber, better than a birthday gift, better than any of my dreams.


	6. Chapter 6: Orange

**Chapter 6: Orange**

The board didn't request anything anymore. It stayed infuriatingly blank, and I wondered what it could possibly mean. Jack told me that it was the spring now, and he was busier than usual with his farm. I couldn't tell how long he had been away, but he said he felt guilty for not coming as often as he had over the winter. I sat in my bed and for some reason I was never as sleepy after our interviews. My senses were alive, and my heart took time to slow down.

He came one day and handed me a glimmering spring sun, and then sat on the side of the bed and looked at me, "It's beautiful out there, Keira. I wish…"

"I'd like to see your world." I wrote, showing it to him. He sighed and we were quiet, his mouth not opening and my pencil not scrawling. It seemed like wishful thinking, but I wondered if maybe, just maybe, the magic was going away. The message sign didn't write anymore…

"You know," Jack interrupted the silence, trying to lighten the mood, "you haven't told me about any of your dreams lately. I'd like to hear if you dreamed of my livestock roaming the streets again!" We laughed at the memory of my strange dream. Secretly I was uncertain of if I should reply, so I didn't write anything. He cocked an eyebrow, "Well, what do you dream about in general then, if you won't say specifics?"

My pencil hovered over the paper and then I determinedly dropped it down to write the answer. He had said he would always come down if I couldn't come up, so I should have no fears.

"You."

There was a silence where I didn't dare look up at my friend. He coughed and then said, "We're friends, best friends. If something happened we'd still be that way, right?"

I looked up at him, confused, but I nodded. I suddenly remembered all of the girls in the valley and wondered if he was getting married. He had talked of Celia particularly fondly, and my heart started to feel heavy. Or maybe he couldn't come down the mine often anymore, or he was moving from the valley, or someone disapproved of what they had heard about me from Jack and he wanted to please them… As thoughts raced through my head, Jack did something that I could have never anticipated.

He took off his hat, wrung it in his hands, and then leaned down and kissed my cheek. The whirring thoughts disappeared without a trace. My face turned bright red under his lips, and as he stood again, he grinned at me shyly, rather sheepishly, and said, "We're still good, right?"

I didn't take my eyes off him as I wrote on my tablet and only glanced at it to make sure it was legible. My heart was flooded with happiness and I hoped the smile on my face showed it. I flipped up my message for him to see, "Perfect."


	7. Chapter 7: Red

**Chapter 7: Red**

He would come, and we would talk even more openly than we had before. Before he would leave he would always give me a kiss on the cheek, and it would always leave me breathless. I wanted more than ever to break these shackles of the mines and go to the surface. I had a large collection of seasonal suns now, so many I could go through the seasons at least a hundred times. I smiled whenever I remembered our conversations, our times together, whenever I thought of him.

The rock crumbled and Jack walked in one day, with a story about getting another chicken coop and how Rock and Lumina had been flirting again, and I wrote, "You're a cutie." I doodled a little heart next to it and showed him with a blush. He chuckled shyly and gave me an extra kiss on the cheek, even though he denied looking anything close to attractive.

Another season passed: it was summer, as Jack told me. We had known each other for months now, and even though it had seemed an eternity before the rancher came to me, it seemed like only a few days since he had arrived in my life. I never wanted him out of it.

He didn't come for what seemed like, even to me, with no real way of telling days and weeks, a long time. I slept fitfully, dreaming of never seeing Jack again, of losing the one good thing that had happened to me in my memory. I woke once or twice with a tear-stained face and was anguished at my nightmares, but I recalled Jack's wishing me sweet dreams and I tried hard to have them.

I awoke suddenly, with no rhyme or reason, and heard the rock begin to rumble and fall apart. It seemed like minutes went by before Jack entered the chamber, and he seemed decidedly unlike himself. He was a strange mixture of anxiety and something like assuredness. He came to the foot of the bed and I hastily wrote, "It feels like ages since you were here last."

"A week, five days, four hours." He replied bashfully, his hand searching for something in his pocket. Such a short time… I felt in my heart that it was because I couldn't bear to be apart from him. It beat quickly and happily when he was around, but was left unenthused and sorrowful without the object of its affection.

He walked to my side and gazed down at me. I couldn't really guess the expression he wore, I had never seen anything like it before. It made my heart melt.

"Keira. I…I w-want to give you this," he pulled something out of his pocket. Kneeling down on one knee beside me, he pressed the object into my hand like he had done with the emerald. His fingers left my hand and I could only stare at the contents of my palm. A beautiful, sapphire feather. And I knew what this meant. And though I had never dreamed of him giving it to me, this reality seemed the sweetest dream of all.

I gently put the feather down on my quilt, blushing furiously, and wrote, "Me? Really me?"

Before I could give way to doubts he took my other hand and squeezed it, "Yes, I love you more than I ever thought was possible for someone to feel." He gazed into my eyes and I knew he was being completely serious. He continued, "It seems like our relationship is kind of impossible, a princess in the mine and a rancher above. We'll try again to get you out of here. If not, I'll come to you always."

I embraced him tightly and a few tears fell before I could catch them. He wiped them off with his gloved hand and then kissed me on the lips for the first time.

When he left he had his head turned so he could watch me until I disappeared out of sight. I waved to him and I heard boots running up the steps. A stupid, stupid rock crashed down again.

I held the feather in my hand and dreamed of life above, of life with people, and of life by his side. Jack came once more before the wedding, which was a week from the day he proposed. Before he went back to the surface, I wrote, "I'd like to live my life to you." Jack appreciated it so much he asked for the paper to carry with him until the ceremony, and I gave it to him. I couldn't wait for the day, but I worried about whether it would work, whether I could really get out of the mine. And I decided, though it pained and hurt me to think about it, that if I could not get out, I would let him go. I would not have him chained to the mines as I was.

Jack was beside the bed when I woke up, gently shaking my shoulder. I smiled bashfully at him and he helped me get out of the bed like that day long ago. I walked uncertainly at first, but before three steps I was on my own. Jack held onto my hand as we neared the doorway, and we both squeezed our interlocked fingers. Taking a deep breath, I decided to let Jack go first again. If the rock fell, how would he get out? He could not live in the mines as I had somehow been able to. He walked across, and I could see his face line with nerves.

Putting a foot through the threshold, I strained to hear a rock coming down. It was silent as I was. I took another step, I was now fully under a rock's path. No sound, not even breathing, because we were both holding ours. I took a few more steps, still nothing. I smiled triumphantly, relieved, taking a final step onto the tilled pathway of the mine outside my chamber. Jack let out his breath and held me close, forcing my breath out of me. I sighed mutely but happily, the crisis over, and we started walking to the stairs.

When I got to the surface and walked out of the excavation site, the sun blinded me and the heat shocked me. But it warmed me head to toe, and once I could see everything was so wonderful, just as Jack had described it to be. The summer breeze blew through my long hair. I took a deep breath of the air, and I was free. Jack was by my side, the world was stretched out in front of me, and it was better than any sweet dream.


End file.
